5 reasons why letting agents should use technology to stay compliant

Over the recent years, we have seen a growth in technology literacy among letting agents. Expectations have grown and technology is becoming more sophisticated - but we’re still behind other industries.

With nearly 125 pieces of legislation to interact with, it simply shouldn’t be this difficult to be an agent. An agent’s skill set should be linked with connecting people, letting properties, and finding tenants. No one wants to be stuck doing admin or worrying about compliance burdens. 

Here are five ways that technology can help alleviate those stresses.

1. Dealing with administrative burdens

Having to sit around doing admin is painful for everybody, and this is where tech can step in the most. Repetitive tasks mean a lot of manual exchanges of information. How do you optimise that and make consumers feel like they’re in control?

Something as simple as gas safety certificates. It’s so much easier when a system flags this for you, rather than you manually checking every property. Simple for technology, but a lifesaver for you.

Goodlord’s newest platform contains expiring certificate notifications, taking out one of the repetitive administrative tasks of daily life. Find out more on our keynote announcement, Willow.  

2. Supporting accidental landlords

Landlords are leaving the industry because they find the burden of regulation to be onerous. None will have it as worse as accidental landlords with one or two properties.

Accidental landlords are being put at huge risks from the level of legislative requirements they have. Imagine if you get a letter through the door from some authority going “Hi, you’ve breached x, y, z piece of legislation” and you don’t even know what that is. 

This is where being an agent is so important. You can show you - and your technology - is on top of the latest lettings legislation and compliance. 

3. Handling landlord and tenant data

Everyone is aware of GDPR, but it’s so important that customer data is handled appropriately. It’s a reputational thing - if agents get it wrong, there could be consequences. Technology can help you to stay compliant as simply as making sure that your client list has given their consent to receive marketing materials.

4. Dealing with anti-money laundering

The idea of fines can be incredibly daunting. Technology can be helpful to identify individuals and identify patterns in behaviour. 

This is especially when you start looking at financial transactions and where money is coming from - all that kind of stuff humans can’t do. You just don’t have enough hours in the day to do it, so why not let technology find it for you?

5. Giving landlords and tenants more control

We live in an era where we want a taxi to come in two minutes and food to show up in 30. People want to be looked after to a higher standard, which is why technology is so important at automating processes, and keeping a tenant up-to-date on how a tenancy is progressing.

Moving houses is a stressful thing. If an agent can demonstrate they’re handholding a tenant through the process, that’s where they can set themselves apart. It’s not about “I’m trying to shift a house.” It’s about “How I care about you, the individual?”

Want to hear more? Listen to Goodlord's podcast with Tara Lynch: How technology can help agents to stay compliant.